Briggs’s rage completely blinded him to the shadow stepping up behind him.
Instead of letting go, he shoved Evelyn with both hands. Hard.
“You’re nothing here!” Briggs roared, his face flushed purple. “Get back in line!”
Evelyn stumbled backward, hitting the cold gray floor with a heavy thud.
The lobby collectively gasped. The silence that followed was suffocating.
But the tall man in the dark coat didn’t freeze.
He crossed the space in a lethal blur. He wasn’t a random bystander. He was her executive protection.
Before Briggs could take a single victory breath, iron-grip hands seized him from behind. Briggs was violently spun around.
*CRACK.*
The bodyguard slammed Briggs face-first onto the gray security desk. The impact rattled the nearby metal detectors. Briggs’s arms were instantly wrenched behind his back, pinned with bone-snapping precision.
Panic flooded Briggs’s eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he lay paralyzed, his cheek smashed against the cold desktop.
Evelyn didn’t scream. She didn’t call for help.
She simply stood up.
With chilling composure, she placed a hand flat against her chest, smoothing the wrinkles from her khaki shirt. She adjusted her gold hoop earring, stepping over to look down at the man who had just assaulted her.
The bully was now the prey.
“Who… who are you?” Briggs choked out, gasping for air against the desk.
Evelyn’s gaze was absolute ice. She wasn’t a lost visitor. She was the incoming CEO, conducting a quiet stress test of her new acquisition.
She leaned in, her voice carrying a quiet, devastating power.
“You confused a badge with authority,” she whispered. “You’re fired.”
Briggs’s mouth fell open in breathless, wide-eyed horror, realizing too late he had just thrown his new boss to the floor.